A gap between real life and theory often exists in academic education. As an attempt to cross thi... more A gap between real life and theory often exists in academic education. As an attempt to cross this cap at the University of Jyvaskyla we ran a Career paths of IS course for new information systems students at the beginning of their studies. The aim of the course was to strengthen students’ motivation to proceed in their studies in IS/ICT, their professional identity building, and to give them possibilities to reflect in their own interests within the field and thus help them make choices during their studies. The purpose of the course was thus to strengthen students’ working life orientation. In this paper we analyze how the students’ work life orientation was developed during our career path training. In addition, the paper discusses the results of the empirical part in the light of Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Information Systems of ACM and AIS.
Purpose – This paper aims to report on the design and creation of a knowledge management course a... more Purpose – This paper aims to report on the design and creation of a knowledge management course aimed at facilitating student creation and use of social interactive learning tools for enhanced learning. Design/methodology/approach – The era of social media and web 2.0 has enabled a bottom-up collaborative approach and new ways to publish work on the web, promoted by tools such as YouTube video service. In this spirit a knowledge management course was designed aiming to facilitate university students to compose videos on different difficult concepts in the theory part of the course by searching for explanations on the web and by creating a Windows Media Player video focusing on the self-defined problems. The videos created by the students were published on a wiki (Wetpaint) and the students were encouraged to actively share knowledge and learn from one another by familiarising themselves with the videos of the other students. In order to utilise cognitive and social constructivism, as well as problem-based learning, the principles of the Jigsaw method were used to enable different students to create videos on different themes. Findings – Based on the authors' experiences it is suggested that curriculum and syllabus planning should be transformed toward a more student-centred approach. This is the most natural in the context of knowledge management, which emphasizes the meaning of participation and knowledge sharing. The social constructivist learning theory emphasizes the meaning of interaction in successful learning. By publishing videos created by the students themselves, by commenting on videos created by other students and by reading comments expressed by others the approach proved to be beneficial for learning in many ways. Research limitations/implications – The research limitation lies in the differences of quality, format and sizes of these videos produced and the efforts and time requirements for editing and use. Practical implications – The present finding and report implies more of these resources could be generated by students in other courses in other study areas encouraging use of these types of resources, engaging students with the curriculum, and encouraging interaction amongst students promoting deeper understanding, more positive learning experiences and the generation of curriculum teaching materials by students for class work, making learning more student focused. Originality/value – The paper focuses on a unique process that allows the use of social technology by students for the generation of materials for use in learning.
A gap between real life and theory usually exists in education. However, this gap can be crossed ... more A gap between real life and theory usually exists in education. However, this gap can be crossed in all levels of an ICT curriculum. The constructivist learning theory and the concept of professional growth can be the building blocks for a career path course in which students can meet their professional needs since the beginning of studies. At the University of Jyväskylä we ran the career path of ICT course for new information systems students during the first month of their studies. The course included expert lectures of ICT professionals representing the different aspects of ICT work. Additionally, the students were expected to discuss these issues in their assignment. In this paper we clarify why and how we ran our career path course. In addition, we present how students ’ motivation was developed during the course. According our results, the students were more motivated to study to a programmer’s, a system analyst’s, a project manager’s, and a system maintainer than to a job of ...
This paper studies factors in information technology adoption, on both firm level and individual ... more This paper studies factors in information technology adoption, on both firm level and individual level, to help further understand organizational innovativeness. Especially, business-strategic and tactical factors affecting the adoption, and particular assimilation-related factors, are studied among interactive firms, also the ways the factors are related. This paper adds to the earlier literature in recognizing and combining factors behind reasoning for and against adopting new technology innovations, on various reasoning-levels. Literature, so far, has been scattered among those, while adoption and assimilation in general have been well modelled. We need to better understand what is significant as the driving and hindering forces for firms when making decisions about adopting new technology and assimilating it. This study is part of a wider, intercultural research and presents findings of our study in China. It shows the meaning of issues related to spreading new technology. We sh...
A gap between real life and theory usually exists in education. However, this gap can be crossed ... more A gap between real life and theory usually exists in education. However, this gap can be crossed in all levels of an ICT curriculum. The constructivist learning theory and the concept of professional growth can be the building blocks for a career path course in which students can meet their professional needs since the beginning of studies. At the University of Jyvaskyla we ran the career path of ICT course for new information systems students during the first month of their studies. The course included expert lectures of ICT professionals representing the different aspects of ICT work. Additionally, the students were expected to discuss these issues in their assignment. In this paper we clarify why and how we ran our career path course. In addition, we present how students’ motivation was developed during the course. According our results, the students were more motivated to study to a programmer’s, a system analyst’s, a project manager’s, and a system maintainer than to a job of a database designer, a data communications professional, and a web and multimedia designer. The result gives the guidelines to the next evaluation round of the information systems science curriculum at the University of Jyvaskyla and other academic entities. However, qualitative research on the subject is needed to support these curriculum development efforts.
Hypertext and the WWW appear to have a positive effect on learning. Both techniques permit a cons... more Hypertext and the WWW appear to have a positive effect on learning. Both techniques permit a constructivist learning environment to support the student's knowledge construction and permit a more active student role. However, the problems associated with the aforementioned may endanger the benefit to learning. Thus, the role and the forms of hypertext and the WWW must be discussed. Due to the common problems of "information overload" and being "lost-in hyperspace " we suggest guided tours in the form of a slideshow presentation as a solution to organizing a hypermedia presentation on the WWW for learning the basics of informatics. These slides include links to the appropriate supporting web sites. In addition to the idea of a guided tour, based on the cognitive flexibility theory, we also suggest that the use of search engines and directories must be promoted. This paper describes the use of guided tours as a complementary addition to conventional lectures in...
Business organizations and their employees face ever-increasing complexity and accelerating chang... more Business organizations and their employees face ever-increasing complexity and accelerating changes. This brings along the need for training models that can transmit knowledge and skills needed in this kind of environment. Business process understanding is especially required. This article evaluates business games in the light of constructivism, a view of learning emphasizing the need to anchor training to everyday activi-ties and concrete contexts, and introduces a new computer-based business game. The purpose of this con-struction is to give the business game participants a realistic view of business processes and thus enhance participant business process perception. The primary aim of the construction is to present business pro-cesses to game participants by providing a natural representation of the real world and a case-based learn-ing environment that fosters reflective practice. Although this article does not explicitly describe a geo-graphically distributed game case, it intr...
Students, as digital natives, are fascinated by social media as they use it in their everyday liv... more Students, as digital natives, are fascinated by social media as they use it in their everyday lives. However, not only opportunities but also challenges for education have arisen with the new bottom-up approach of using social media for educational purposes. In order to investigate different aspects of social media adoption and use in higher educational learning environments, a longitudinal study starting in 2010 was conducted. This paper summarizes and analyzes our findings based on several studies with quantitative and qualitative data collected and presented in 16 different articles throughout the last decade. Based on our results, we reached the conclusion that when there is proper infrastructure, appropriate strategies are applied, security and privacy are of high priority and teachers become accustomed to using modern technologies, social media can be used as an effective educational tool which improves the overall educational process and learning outcomes. Specifically, by us...
Outsourcing is changing the decision-making environment. Tasks are becoming distributed and geogr... more Outsourcing is changing the decision-making environment. Tasks are becoming distributed and geographically dispersed. Groups must make decisions in a virtual environment. Virtual group collaboration efforts are quite different than face-to-face groups. Virtual group dynamics can be simulated from virtual groups used in web-based education (WBE). Both environments have many common elements. Experiences gained from WBE can then be extended to global virtual groups. This paper addresses issues related to virtual teams in a cross-cultural environment in a WBE environment and extends them to virtual global teams. Introduction In the borderless economy, outsourcing has become a major cost cutting tool for multinationals. Outsourcing is touching all operational aspects of the organization, i.e., manufacturing, software development, telemedicine and IT services. Outsourcing started small but is becoming a giant industry as is evident by the latest results of giant outsourcing companies like...
The Internet can solve some pedagogical problems. To give an example, seminars for crowded course... more The Internet can solve some pedagogical problems. To give an example, seminars for crowded courses exceeding a hundred participants would not be possible without web-based arrangements. In the academic year 2001-2002 we organized a web-based coursework and seminar during the Knowledge Work and its Tools course for some students (experimental group). Simultaneously, we ran the same course including a conventional coursework and seminar for other students (control group). During the coursework and while in the seminar the students were expected to work in small groups of two to five students. In the web-based seminar each group had their own workspace in the Web CT environment for publishing and presenting coursework. At the final phase of the course the students were expected to familiarize themselves with the presentations of other groups. In this paper we analyze the benefit of our WWW-based seminar focusing on the learning outcomes of the students concerning the basic concepts of ...
A gap between real life and theory usually exists in education. However, this gap can be crossed ... more A gap between real life and theory usually exists in education. However, this gap can be crossed in all levels of an ICT curriculum. The constructivist learning theory and the concept of professional growth can be the building blocks for a career path course in which students can meet their professional needs since the beginning of studies. At the University of Jyvaskyla we ran the career path of ICT course for new information systems students during the first month of their studies. The course included expert lectures of ICT professionals representing the different aspects of ICT work. Additionally, the students were expected to discuss these issues in their assignment. In this paper we clarify why and how we ran our career path course. In addition, we present how students’ motivation was developed during the course. According our results, the students were more motivated to study to a programmer’s, a system analyst’s, a project manager’s, and a system maintainer than to a job of a...
This paper describes the use of the web as a complementary addition to conventional lectures in t... more This paper describes the use of the web as a complementary addition to conventional lectures in the learning of the basics of informatics. We utilize a slideshow with links, search engines on the web, and the Web CT environment. The solution enables a web-based seminar supporting learning in various ways. First, in our approach the students compose a coursework report focusing on the main concepts of the subject area. This occurs by using the slideshow with links and search engines on the web. Second, in the web-based seminar students can familiarize themselves with the coursework reports of other students. We claim that in this way learning can be promoted in the spirit of both cognitive and social constructivism. At the beginning and end of the course we analyzed how useful and interesting the students regarded six course themes. In addition, the students were expected to analyze their own development of computer use skills, Internet use skills, and their knowledge of basic concep...
A gap between real life and theory often exists in academic education. As an attempt to cross thi... more A gap between real life and theory often exists in academic education. As an attempt to cross this cap at the University of Jyvaskyla we ran a Career paths of IS course for new information systems students at the beginning of their studies. The aim of the course was to strengthen students’ motivation to proceed in their studies in IS/ICT, their professional identity building, and to give them possibilities to reflect in their own interests within the field and thus help them make choices during their studies. The purpose of the course was thus to strengthen students’ working life orientation. In this paper we analyze how the students’ work life orientation was developed during our career path training. In addition, the paper discusses the results of the empirical part in the light of Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Information Systems of ACM and AIS.
Purpose – This paper aims to report on the design and creation of a knowledge management course a... more Purpose – This paper aims to report on the design and creation of a knowledge management course aimed at facilitating student creation and use of social interactive learning tools for enhanced learning. Design/methodology/approach – The era of social media and web 2.0 has enabled a bottom-up collaborative approach and new ways to publish work on the web, promoted by tools such as YouTube video service. In this spirit a knowledge management course was designed aiming to facilitate university students to compose videos on different difficult concepts in the theory part of the course by searching for explanations on the web and by creating a Windows Media Player video focusing on the self-defined problems. The videos created by the students were published on a wiki (Wetpaint) and the students were encouraged to actively share knowledge and learn from one another by familiarising themselves with the videos of the other students. In order to utilise cognitive and social constructivism, as well as problem-based learning, the principles of the Jigsaw method were used to enable different students to create videos on different themes. Findings – Based on the authors' experiences it is suggested that curriculum and syllabus planning should be transformed toward a more student-centred approach. This is the most natural in the context of knowledge management, which emphasizes the meaning of participation and knowledge sharing. The social constructivist learning theory emphasizes the meaning of interaction in successful learning. By publishing videos created by the students themselves, by commenting on videos created by other students and by reading comments expressed by others the approach proved to be beneficial for learning in many ways. Research limitations/implications – The research limitation lies in the differences of quality, format and sizes of these videos produced and the efforts and time requirements for editing and use. Practical implications – The present finding and report implies more of these resources could be generated by students in other courses in other study areas encouraging use of these types of resources, engaging students with the curriculum, and encouraging interaction amongst students promoting deeper understanding, more positive learning experiences and the generation of curriculum teaching materials by students for class work, making learning more student focused. Originality/value – The paper focuses on a unique process that allows the use of social technology by students for the generation of materials for use in learning.
A gap between real life and theory usually exists in education. However, this gap can be crossed ... more A gap between real life and theory usually exists in education. However, this gap can be crossed in all levels of an ICT curriculum. The constructivist learning theory and the concept of professional growth can be the building blocks for a career path course in which students can meet their professional needs since the beginning of studies. At the University of Jyväskylä we ran the career path of ICT course for new information systems students during the first month of their studies. The course included expert lectures of ICT professionals representing the different aspects of ICT work. Additionally, the students were expected to discuss these issues in their assignment. In this paper we clarify why and how we ran our career path course. In addition, we present how students ’ motivation was developed during the course. According our results, the students were more motivated to study to a programmer’s, a system analyst’s, a project manager’s, and a system maintainer than to a job of ...
This paper studies factors in information technology adoption, on both firm level and individual ... more This paper studies factors in information technology adoption, on both firm level and individual level, to help further understand organizational innovativeness. Especially, business-strategic and tactical factors affecting the adoption, and particular assimilation-related factors, are studied among interactive firms, also the ways the factors are related. This paper adds to the earlier literature in recognizing and combining factors behind reasoning for and against adopting new technology innovations, on various reasoning-levels. Literature, so far, has been scattered among those, while adoption and assimilation in general have been well modelled. We need to better understand what is significant as the driving and hindering forces for firms when making decisions about adopting new technology and assimilating it. This study is part of a wider, intercultural research and presents findings of our study in China. It shows the meaning of issues related to spreading new technology. We sh...
A gap between real life and theory usually exists in education. However, this gap can be crossed ... more A gap between real life and theory usually exists in education. However, this gap can be crossed in all levels of an ICT curriculum. The constructivist learning theory and the concept of professional growth can be the building blocks for a career path course in which students can meet their professional needs since the beginning of studies. At the University of Jyvaskyla we ran the career path of ICT course for new information systems students during the first month of their studies. The course included expert lectures of ICT professionals representing the different aspects of ICT work. Additionally, the students were expected to discuss these issues in their assignment. In this paper we clarify why and how we ran our career path course. In addition, we present how students’ motivation was developed during the course. According our results, the students were more motivated to study to a programmer’s, a system analyst’s, a project manager’s, and a system maintainer than to a job of a database designer, a data communications professional, and a web and multimedia designer. The result gives the guidelines to the next evaluation round of the information systems science curriculum at the University of Jyvaskyla and other academic entities. However, qualitative research on the subject is needed to support these curriculum development efforts.
Hypertext and the WWW appear to have a positive effect on learning. Both techniques permit a cons... more Hypertext and the WWW appear to have a positive effect on learning. Both techniques permit a constructivist learning environment to support the student's knowledge construction and permit a more active student role. However, the problems associated with the aforementioned may endanger the benefit to learning. Thus, the role and the forms of hypertext and the WWW must be discussed. Due to the common problems of "information overload" and being "lost-in hyperspace " we suggest guided tours in the form of a slideshow presentation as a solution to organizing a hypermedia presentation on the WWW for learning the basics of informatics. These slides include links to the appropriate supporting web sites. In addition to the idea of a guided tour, based on the cognitive flexibility theory, we also suggest that the use of search engines and directories must be promoted. This paper describes the use of guided tours as a complementary addition to conventional lectures in...
Business organizations and their employees face ever-increasing complexity and accelerating chang... more Business organizations and their employees face ever-increasing complexity and accelerating changes. This brings along the need for training models that can transmit knowledge and skills needed in this kind of environment. Business process understanding is especially required. This article evaluates business games in the light of constructivism, a view of learning emphasizing the need to anchor training to everyday activi-ties and concrete contexts, and introduces a new computer-based business game. The purpose of this con-struction is to give the business game participants a realistic view of business processes and thus enhance participant business process perception. The primary aim of the construction is to present business pro-cesses to game participants by providing a natural representation of the real world and a case-based learn-ing environment that fosters reflective practice. Although this article does not explicitly describe a geo-graphically distributed game case, it intr...
Students, as digital natives, are fascinated by social media as they use it in their everyday liv... more Students, as digital natives, are fascinated by social media as they use it in their everyday lives. However, not only opportunities but also challenges for education have arisen with the new bottom-up approach of using social media for educational purposes. In order to investigate different aspects of social media adoption and use in higher educational learning environments, a longitudinal study starting in 2010 was conducted. This paper summarizes and analyzes our findings based on several studies with quantitative and qualitative data collected and presented in 16 different articles throughout the last decade. Based on our results, we reached the conclusion that when there is proper infrastructure, appropriate strategies are applied, security and privacy are of high priority and teachers become accustomed to using modern technologies, social media can be used as an effective educational tool which improves the overall educational process and learning outcomes. Specifically, by us...
Outsourcing is changing the decision-making environment. Tasks are becoming distributed and geogr... more Outsourcing is changing the decision-making environment. Tasks are becoming distributed and geographically dispersed. Groups must make decisions in a virtual environment. Virtual group collaboration efforts are quite different than face-to-face groups. Virtual group dynamics can be simulated from virtual groups used in web-based education (WBE). Both environments have many common elements. Experiences gained from WBE can then be extended to global virtual groups. This paper addresses issues related to virtual teams in a cross-cultural environment in a WBE environment and extends them to virtual global teams. Introduction In the borderless economy, outsourcing has become a major cost cutting tool for multinationals. Outsourcing is touching all operational aspects of the organization, i.e., manufacturing, software development, telemedicine and IT services. Outsourcing started small but is becoming a giant industry as is evident by the latest results of giant outsourcing companies like...
The Internet can solve some pedagogical problems. To give an example, seminars for crowded course... more The Internet can solve some pedagogical problems. To give an example, seminars for crowded courses exceeding a hundred participants would not be possible without web-based arrangements. In the academic year 2001-2002 we organized a web-based coursework and seminar during the Knowledge Work and its Tools course for some students (experimental group). Simultaneously, we ran the same course including a conventional coursework and seminar for other students (control group). During the coursework and while in the seminar the students were expected to work in small groups of two to five students. In the web-based seminar each group had their own workspace in the Web CT environment for publishing and presenting coursework. At the final phase of the course the students were expected to familiarize themselves with the presentations of other groups. In this paper we analyze the benefit of our WWW-based seminar focusing on the learning outcomes of the students concerning the basic concepts of ...
A gap between real life and theory usually exists in education. However, this gap can be crossed ... more A gap between real life and theory usually exists in education. However, this gap can be crossed in all levels of an ICT curriculum. The constructivist learning theory and the concept of professional growth can be the building blocks for a career path course in which students can meet their professional needs since the beginning of studies. At the University of Jyvaskyla we ran the career path of ICT course for new information systems students during the first month of their studies. The course included expert lectures of ICT professionals representing the different aspects of ICT work. Additionally, the students were expected to discuss these issues in their assignment. In this paper we clarify why and how we ran our career path course. In addition, we present how students’ motivation was developed during the course. According our results, the students were more motivated to study to a programmer’s, a system analyst’s, a project manager’s, and a system maintainer than to a job of a...
This paper describes the use of the web as a complementary addition to conventional lectures in t... more This paper describes the use of the web as a complementary addition to conventional lectures in the learning of the basics of informatics. We utilize a slideshow with links, search engines on the web, and the Web CT environment. The solution enables a web-based seminar supporting learning in various ways. First, in our approach the students compose a coursework report focusing on the main concepts of the subject area. This occurs by using the slideshow with links and search engines on the web. Second, in the web-based seminar students can familiarize themselves with the coursework reports of other students. We claim that in this way learning can be promoted in the spirit of both cognitive and social constructivism. At the beginning and end of the course we analyzed how useful and interesting the students regarded six course themes. In addition, the students were expected to analyze their own development of computer use skills, Internet use skills, and their knowledge of basic concep...
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